On Tue, 16 Nov 1999, Thomas R. Wier wrote:
> of the situation -- common languages *can* lead to greater
> understanding, and so insofar as that is true, it's not "crapola".
So? "Greater understanding" does not lead to peace--not on a political
nor military level. War is not caused by "misunderstanding"--that's
touchy-feelie fuzzy-wuzzy nonsense. The belligerents in the vast
majority of wars I've studied had rather good understanding of each
other--at least their leaders did. The only major conflicts that don't
follow this model are those that involve the USA. In those cases, it's
usually a matter of a European country misunderstanding how the USA is
not Europe or the USA misunderstanding that the rest of the world doesn't
want to be the USA. A shared language would probably not changed this.
England and America: Two countries divided by the same language.